An urgent message from Athénai’s Georges to the Society for Ecological Restoration – Europe network

“In June 202, we celebrated that the European Commission announced that the EU’s key water legislation, the Water Framework Directive will not be changed. However, only a few years later, the EU’s water protection rules are once again under attack.

The recent EEA report “Europe’s state of water 2024§ was a stark reminder that Europe’s freshwater and coastal ecosystems are under serious pressure. Nearly a quarter of a century after the adoption of the EU’s main water law: the WFD, only 29% of surface waters and 77% of groundwater body area are reported to be in good chemical status.

Yet, this does not give the full picture as “chemical status” under the WFD is only assessed against a small fraction of the substances present in the environment and largely overlooks the effects of chemical mixtures. In short, the full picture of chemical pollution in aquatic environments is underestimated and underreported.

The European institutions are now in the process of updating the priority pollutants to be regulated under EU water law, but the process is facing delays and EU Member States want to misuse this technical update of EU water pollution standards to weaken existing environmental safeguards of the WFD.

We are therefore inviting you to sign this statement in support of maintained ambition in the upcoming negotiations between the EU institutions on the final text.

The statement will be open for signatures up until 15 November. Please note that sign-on is restricted to scientists, researchers and academics.

Sign the statement here.

More information in background briefing.